


If you must live, darling one

by BeesKnees



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 65th Hunger Games, 70th Hunger Games, Careers (Hunger Games), Childhood, F/F, F/M, Finnick Odair-Centric, Hunger Games Tributes, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Pre-Canon, Pre-Hunger Games, Pre-Series, Victors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four-year-old Finnick Odair walks into Mags Cohen's life. She isn't ready for this boy to throw her world off its axis.</p><p>(Rating for later chapters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mags was an unremarkable Victor in many ways. She hadn't won through being terribly clever or through anything horrifically violent – although she had killed two other tributes to secure her crown. She had simply persisted through an array of neat survival techniques and tenacity when it came down to her and one other tribute.

She came home, freshly 18, from the 13th Hunger Games, to a district that was largely unrecognizable. When she moved into Victors' Village, there was only one house, and it was hers. When she was called back to the Capitol, only 10 other Victors greeted her. (The winner of the first Hunger Games had died not long after, although no one knew precisely why. The winner of the fifth Hunger Games had killed herself before her Victory Tour.) 

No, it wasn't as a Victor that Mags Cohen made her mark. She was renowned as a mentor. Up until she arrived in the Capitol, most people didn't know what it meant to be a mentor. They tried to keep themselves distanced from the stream of tributes they fed into the games, and barely spoke to sponsors. But Mags changed things. She didn't like being a Victor, but she tried to help her tributes the best that she could. It wasn't long before Four had brought home more Victors than any other district – and that was one when One and Two started their Career programs. 

Once Four had more than enough mentors, Mags was passed around some of the outlying districts to mentor them. She brought home scrawny Haymitch Abernathy, the only Victor from District 12, during the Quarter Quell. 

(“You don't know me,” he had scowled at her. 

“I know you're scared,” was all she said.)

By the time Mags returned home to District Four permanently, she was 55 years old. She had brought home more Victors than any other mentor. She was known as a grandmother to everyone in District Four. Always went to her tributes' families after she came home. Inherently, she couldn't bring home more than she lost: But in the end, she always made sure her tributes knew they weren't alone when they died, which was maybe the best thing you could do for a tribute.

It was then that Lucy Odair walked back into her life. 

Lucy had been in the same year as her throughout school. They had cowered together during Reapings, breathed sighs of relief when their names weren't called. But, of course, everything had changed when “Margaret Cohen” was indeed Reaped. By the time Mags came back from her games, Lucy was married to Bannock Odair and already pregnant with their first son. So Mags let her go. 

But nine children and nearly four decades later, Bannock Odair was dead, Lucy was on her own, and the mess of her children had already started on messes of their own children, making Lucy a grandmother 15 times over. 

Mags had promised herself she would never marry and that she would never have children. But she's surprised at how easy it is to let Lucy back into her life. And this far in, she's too old for fighting anymore. So, she loves Lucy all the same. Most of the kids don't come and visit Victors' Village, so Lucy makes the rounds between the lot of them. After awhile, Mags comes with her. (She has to admit that it's nice being around children who are so free. The Odairs are a wild bunch, and she can't keep track of them all. They reproduce like rabbits, she swears – but no, not rabbits, because the whole family is ocean-addicted. Sun-kissed with golden hair, just like their matriarch.)

For years, that's the way things go. Mags Cohen is an unofficial Odair. She is part of a family again. She can expect a warm welcome when she comes from the games, a parade of hugs from sticky, little hands. 

That changes one Sunday, when Lucy's oldest son appears at the house in Victors' Village. Mags give them their distance, can hear the murmurs of their voices up the stairs. But she doesn't pry. She waits until Lucy comes to find her. She doesn't ask what's happened, because Lucy doesn't need her to. 

“Joff and his wife are having twins,” Lucy announces from their bedroom door. 

Joff Odair is uncharacteristically serious for an Odair. (It should be a breath of fresh air; after all, two of his younger brothers are far off the edge, one an alcoholic, one perpetually unemployed with a string of bereft lovers.) But Mags can't find it in herself to really like Joff, cold as the man is. 

“Oh?” Mags asks; she understands that this might not be a cause for celebration. Their oldest daughter is sick most of the time, and that first pregnancy had been rough on Joff's wife. They have a little boy now, too, four years old and shier than most of the Odairs. But this pregnancy is unplanned to begin with, and Mags knows that four mouths will put a strain on the family. 

“Joff was wondering if we might take in Finnick for a bit,” Lucy says. “Say you're training him.” 

The Odairs are proud. Mags would have gladly provided for the whole lot of them, if they would have let her. But they won't. Which is why the veneer of training is necessary. Mags won't rebuff them. 

“Of course,” Mags agrees. 

(She doesn't know then. The course of her life is altered, thrown off its axis. This little boy will bring her entire world to its knees.) 

… 

Finnick arrives on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Mags doesn't even realize he's there. She heads downstairs to find Lucy and ask when Finnick is arriving – and finds the boy on the couch. He has the mop of golden hair that so many of the Odairs have, and is far scrawnier than most of his cousins. He has a cute smile – but smiles rarely, she finds. He's easily overshadowed by the louder and more rambunctious Odairs, whom he perpetually seems to be trying to catch up.

He has only a single battered suitcase with him. (When Mags opens it later to put his things away, she finds no toys. He's brought only a few threadbare outfits with him, and two books, both weatherworn and full of sand. She quickly learns that he doesn't lament the lack of clothes. The boy would spend his entire life in a pair of swimming trunks if they let him. The first time Mags manages to coax him to smile is when she shows him how close to the beach they are.)

Mags goes about stacking the house up with better food. Lucy has always done all the cooking, but Mags makes sure they have fresh eggs now, and any time fruit is shipped into Four, she buys a crate. When she realizes what a wicked sweet tooth Finnick has, she has a cake ordered up from the bakery every Sunday.

(“Now you're just spoiling him,” Lucy half-heartedly argues.

Mags shrugs.

“Boy could use some spoiling.”)

For the first year that Finnick lives with them, his “training” consists of going to the beach every morning. Finnick already knows how to swim, but Mags and Lucy teach him different strokes, and he gets stronger and faster. (By the time he's seven, he can outswim the pair of them. And by that time, he's also not afraid to brag about it either.)

They take him home for a bit to see his twin sisters, Sara and Coral, who are healthy and loud babies. Mags holds Sara and rocks her until she quiets. Finnick watches her with an obvious intensity, his green eyes locked onto every one of her movements.

“You want to hold her?” Mags asks, and Finnick nods. She kneels and passes his baby sister over to him, and Finnick copies her. (He's an unerringly bright kid, Mags has sorted out. Brighter than most of the Odairs. She doesn't dare say that out loud to Lucy, but Lucy has laughed over it already. A bit too much balls and not enough brains, Lucy always said of Bannock. It's a trait that's been passed down to too many of their sons.) 

He's exhausted by the time they've walked back to Victors' Village, his feet dragging and scuffing across the ground. Mags picks him up, and he falls asleep against her shoulder. Lucy shakes her head, but doesn't say anything. Finnick is nearly as big as Mags is now, and it's a struggle to carry him. But she gets him up to bed anyway, tucks him in.

“Can I have a story?” he asks, blinking up at her, struggling to stay awake.

“You're sleeping,” Mags tells him immediately, kissing his forehead. 

“'m'not,” he mumbles. 

She settles down against the edge of his bed all the same, smooths the covers out, and tells him one of his favorites. (He likes anything with sea monsters, but only if it has a happy ending. He can't bear for the monsters to be killed, but likes when everyone makes friends. They've cobbled together a messy little world where all the sea monsters know each other, and only bother the land for very sensible reasons, which humans don't immediately understand.) He's asleep before the end of this one, just as she predicted, but she finishes it anyway. 

By the time Finnick turns seven, he's put on some weight. He's not the scrawny four-year-old who came to stay with them. That's when Mags begins to train him in earnest. (They never intend for Finnick to go into the Games. By now, Four has a fairly well-established Career protocol. There's always a 17- or 18-year-old ready to take the place of any little one who is Reaped. But at seven, Mags can tell that Finnick will never have the tenacity to be a Career. And that's more than fine with Mags.) She teaches him things that can be useful anyway. How to find fresh water, how to fish and make fishing hooks, how to navigate with the stars. When he's nine, he asks how to use a trident, so she shrugs and teaches him that as well. 

He grows strong and lean – and mischievous. Lord, can the boy get into mischief. He's with his cousins a good lot of the time, and while most of the Odairs have figured out how to slip away, Finnick never does. The boy is more prone to a rueful shrug of his shoulders and a wry smile than actually escaping. 

(“It wasn't _my_ fault, Grandma LuLu,” is a common saying in their household by the time Finnick is 10. But he never follows up with any extra line of defense.)

Mags, known through the districts for her razor-sharp wit and quick use of her tongue, finds herself incapable of disciplining Finnick. Lucy is the one who has to stand, unimpressed, against Finnick's impish smile. Because Mags is always upstairs, quietly laughing to herself. She manages to reinforce any of Lucy's punishments, but that's the extent of it. 

He's fairly well-behaved anyway, and none of his infractions are terribly serious. 

The older he gets, the more apparent just how good-looking he is going to be – although Finnick seems to be blissfully unaware of this.

(“He would be unbearable if he understood,” Lucy sighs as she gets into bed. 

“He's not a bad kid,” Mags murmurs. Not their Finnick who still asks for bedtime stories and last week brought home an injured bird with the hope of setting its wing. He has the Odair charm, but a healthy dose of compassion offsets that. 

“He'd have everyone as wrapped around his finger as you are,” Lucy answers. She laces their hands together, as if in demonstration. They both wear thin gold bands, paired. It's the only physical sign of their devotion to each other.)

…

Finnick is 12 when Lucy passes. They come home from training one evening to find her in the garden, bent amongst the flowers she had lovingly kept since she moved in with Mags. It was quick, the doctor says. She probably just felt tired, and that was all. 

Finnick is inconsolable. He spends the entire next day crying in his room. Mags manages to coax him down for dinner, a largely silent affair with the two of them. The day after (and the day after that one) he takes to appearing out of nowhere, as if checking to make sure that she also hasn't disappeared. 

They spread Lucy's ashes out at sea the following Sunday. It's a huge gathering, what with all the children and grandchildren (and even a few great-grandchildren). Finnick stays close by her side the entire time, but Mags feels small in the crush of bodies and grief. The truth is that Lucy was the love of her life, but it's a fact that will go largely forgotten. In the story of the family, Bannock is the starring role. Mags is lucky to be a footnote. But with Finnick's hand in hers, she thinks that she can be all right with that. She still wears her ring. Lucy's is in on a chain in the back of a drawer. She thinks she might give it to Finnick when he's older.

The dinner that follows is sprawled across the town. Most people go back to Joff's house, but it can't hold everybody. (Mags would have offered, but she knew they would refuse.) 

Mags doesn't intend to stay long, but she knows that Finnick will follow her home. She hates to think of him not with his family. His youngest sisters trail after him like little ducks. He's old enough now to fake bravado with his older cousins. (Many of whom are also training to be Careers, but Finnick holds a special spot because he's _her_ pupil.) 

She's watching Finnick, and is caught off guard when Joff sidles up next to her. (Hadn't shed a tear once during his mother's funeral. Just a somber stare. Although at one point, Mags was fairly sure, that he had told Finnick to stop crying.) 

“We were thinking that it's time for Finnick to come home,” he says with no precursor. She shouldn't be surprised. She tries to tell herself that, but she feels her heart break at the idea of returning to an empty house, devoid of Lucy's warmth and Finnick's laughter. _He isn't mine to keep_ , Mags tells herself quietly. 

“Of course,” she tells Joff. 

(Joff takes Finnick that night. He and two of his brothers come and get Finnick's things from her house without saying anything, and she doesn't get to tell him good-bye, or that she doesn't want him to go at all. It's not her place to say those things, but she can't sleep anyway. Can't sleep because she thinks of her Finnick, far away. She wonders if he misses her. Or is he happy to go home to his family? Happy, she hopes. Happy, she prays, because that's the best she can hope for.)

She wakes up late the next day. She doesn't want to get out of bed at all, but is surprised to hear clattering in the kitchen. She goes down in her bathrobe, and there's Finnick, frying eggs, toast burning alongside him. 

He beams at her. 

And in this way, they carry on. He doesn't stay with her, but he doesn't leave either. They keep training together. (He is damned good with the trident, but she doesn't give him praise that freely.) She teaches him how to build fires, how to put out fires; how to heal burns and wounds; they go over berries and plants that are edible, that have medicinal purposes. 

In the 63rd Games, Gloss wins his games at the end of a sword, so Finnick asks to be trained in swords for awhile. He's clumsy with it though, and quickly gives up. (When Cashmere wins with throwing knives, he asks to be trained in that as well. He's a little better with the knives, but he'll never be any better than he is with the trident.)

“What's the Capitol like?” Finnick asks when Mags comes back after the 64th Games.

“It's poison,” Mags tells him honestly. It's the most treasonous thing she's ever said. Finnick just scrunches his nose, as if she's being peculiar. 

“Don't sass me, boy,” Mags tells him in response. (She tries, really does, to try and be bit more disciplined with him now that Lucy isn't here.) 

At 13, the girls in Finnick's class have begun to take note of him. A few of them will trail after him when he comes to train, gathering in a gaggle at the top of the beach. Their giggles carry down. Finnick has taken note of them in return. As soon as he has an audience, he is hopeless. 

Mags cuffs him around the back of the head. He drops the trident in the sand, and scrubs a hand across the back of his head, looking ruefully back at Mags.

“Pay attention,” she instructs him. (What she wants to say is, _Don't be so much of an Odair_.)

She finds out that she is mentoring again for the 65th Games. She's nearly 70 and beginning to feel the press of her age. She wonders if Snow will have mentoring until she's in her grave and knows that's a likely story. She meets with the Careers a week before the Reaping. It's good to know who's volunteering. She's seen mishaps in One or Two when they have a few too many excited kids, all trying to clamber and volunteer at once. 

She doesn't see Finnick the morning of the Reaping. (She had bought him a new pair of dress pants the week before though she knew Joff wouldn't approve. He's grown so much in the last few months that half his clothes don't fit anymore, and Mags is used to seeing his ankles sticking out the end of his pants.) She'd also sent a box of oranges with him, including strict instructions that he was to share them with his sisters. (The twins have the Odair devil in them, too. They've come over with Finnick a few times, and they enjoy nothing more than letting people mix their names up. The oldest, Aerona, Mags barely sees. She's got Joff's serious countenance.)

The day is blazing hot, and Mags has to sit on stage. Their escort's makeup is almost melting off her face, and she shades herself with a parasol. She's not the worst of the lot, really. Been around long enough to know that Four isn't as much of a Career district as One or Two, but they have a hell of a lot of hidden strength. She also is damn good at finding stylists who don't make them look foolish, so Mags can respect her even if she shows up looking peculiar in her Capitol getup.

Girls first. A 16-year-old is Reaped, but immediately the 18-year-old Career, Trina, volunteers. She walks onto stage, looking proud and strong. 

An 11-year-old boy is Reaped then. Silence drags on. The boy peeks out of the crowd of 11-year-olds. They're all waiting, waiting for the Career who surely must volunteer. Mags squints down at the boys, trying to locate their contender. Before she can spot him out, an all-too-familiar voice rings out of the crowd, much too far back.

“I volunteer as tribute!” 

The crowd parts again, and a golden head bobs out of the 14-year-olds. 

She feels faint. No, she thinks. Not you. 

A murmur runs through the crowd as Finnick Odair is flanked by Peacekeepers who bring him up to the stage. Their escort leans in, puts the microphone in front of his face, asks for his name.

“Finnick Odair,” he answers, and that dazzling, boyish smile is broadcast all over the Capitol.

As soon as they're off stage, behind closed doors, Mags grabs him by the ear. 

“What are you doing, you little fool?” she asks, the cruelest words she's ever said to him, but she's scared. Lucy would never forgive her, not for this, not for allowing their Finnick to volunteer.

“Ow, Mags!” Finnick protests. He screws up his face in pain, but doesn't try to shove her off. “I'm a Career, too, ain't I!”

“ _Aren't_ I?” Mags corrects on impulse. She almost goes on to say that he's _14_ and no one that young has ever won the games. But she stops herself, and takes a shaky breath. She lets go of his ear. There's no use crying over it now. It's done and he's a tribute. She gathers him up in her arms, but not for too long. He's still looking at her warily. She can't do anything to scare him now. They're going to need that Odair confidence to get him through.

…

They polish off the last layers of his boyhood. He looks older when he appears on the chariot. (Still small compared to Trina, though.) But that is easily forgotten when Flickerman interviews him. Flickerman is clearly enamored. Mags watches from backstage, her stomach twisted in knots. Flickerman leaves his hand too long on Finnick's knee, specifically asks at the end for him to flash them that pretty smile again. (Finnick likes the attention too much. He gives them anything they ask, not thinking about what he might be losing in turn.) 

Mags frets. (And here is her worst truth: She will do anything to keep Finnick alive, and is terrified that the price they – he – will pay for that sin is much too high.)

“You sure you want to bring this one back?” Haymitch slurs, tossing an arm around her shoulders.

“I brought you back, didn't I?” Mags returns, trying to mask all her fears. (He's too young, her head keeps telling her.) 

Finnick is pale the final morning. He picks at his food, until Mags tells him to eat. He swallows everything almost whole then, puts away nearly an entire pitcher of water. (It won't save him. Dehydration is almost always the most dangerous thing in the games.) 

She stays with him while he gets suited up. His stylist leaves and Mags brings him in close for a hug. She clings to him. Her hands shake. She remembers telling him stories when he was small, a mere 10 years ago, and then when he was big enough, he'd started telling her stories. In her heart, suddenly, like a sunburst, she realizes that she won't survive losing him. 

“Stay focused,” she tells him instead, voice still stern. She pats a hand twice against his cheek, and then points at him. Dear God, that has always been his weakness. He smiles at her, but it's watered down.


	2. Chapter 2

Mags watches Finnick on his pedestal. He is focused, even if his fear is visible, thinly veiled. (Did I train him well enough? Did I bring up a child who is capable of being a killer? She remembers soft feathers in his hand as he presented her with the bird he had found. His reluctance for the sea monsters of their stories to be killed. Can her Finnick be the sort of murderer one almost always has to be to come back?)

He dashes for the Cornucopia. Mags closes her eyes. Cannons thud almost in time with her heartbeat. 

When she opens them again, her boy is running in stride with the Career pack, a backpack thrown across his shoulders.

Finnick's group hikes away from the bloodbath left at the Cornucopia. It doesn't take them long to find the river that flows through the center of the arena. Finnick hangs back a little as the other goes traipsing happily toward the water. (They've all been warned of how hard it can be to find fresh water, and are obviously excited that this won't be a problem in their arena.)

Finnick glances around though; he senses that something is off. He seems to try and warn the others, but before he can get a word out, a fish appears at the lip of the river. It's too bright to be natural, but the other Careers don't seem to notice it. Without warning, it shoots a barbed spear from the back of its tail. It catches the girl from Two in the throat, and she drops.

The girl from One screams, and they all scurry back from the river. (They do have fresh water. It's just not as easy to get to as they thought.) More warily this time, the group fills up their canteens. They don't stay by the waterbed. 

They keep hiking, and within the hour, they run into the little girl from Twelve. 

(Mags holds her breath. In his corner, Haymitch breaks open a bottle of whiskey.) 

Finnick still trails toward the back of the pack, but he does nothing to stop the others as they circle around the girl. (She is young and small, and looks almost like she's just going to accept the inevitability of her death.) The boy from Two has a set of knives. He takes the largest of them and slits the girl's throat. (A quick death. That's the best mercy Mags can hope for.)

But, in all honesty, she's not watching the girl from Twelve or the boy from Two. She's watching Finnick, who watches with the same intense fascination that he has for every lesson she's every taught him. (She remembers passing him his baby sister, showing him how to carefully cradle her.)

Mags watches for 36 hours straight before her fellow District Four mentor, Torr, forces her to get some sleep. She doesn't ask for him to wake her if something happens to Finnick, but she knows he will all the same. She sleeps fitfully and is up before dawn. 

When she wakes, she finds that two more tributes have died during the night. The pack is still going strong. Finnick has designed nets for them, and most of their day is spent scattering their traps throughout the arena. By nightfall, they've caught someone. The boy from Three wrestles in the rope, but can't break free. (Beetee goes still in front of the screen.)

“You do it, kid,” the boy from Two challenges Finnick. Finnick accepts the sword he's handed, looks down at it, and then looks back up at the boy from Three, who's breathing loud, audibly scared. The sword looks out of place in Finnick's hand, but he jabs forward, the lines of his body neat. (He lunges in the way he would with a trident.) The blow is effective all the same. The boy shrieks, and Finnick opens up his belly. Blood splatters onto the grassy ground. 

(This is her answer: Her Finnick is capable of killing.)

The cannon sounds. Beetee leaves the room.

Finnick carries himself differently. He doesn't give the sword back. 

 

Mags sleeps again that night, but barely. While she sleeps and throughout the next day, the pack keeps using Finnick's trips to hunt down many of the other tributes, who don't know how to look for the traps. (As more of the tributes become desperate for water, the fish in the river become deadlier as well.) 

When she goes to bed the next night, there are only eight tributes left. The room buzzes with tension. (The pack will break up soon, that is a sure thing. There are five Careers in it. When your pack makes up more than half of the number left, it makes you vulnerable.)

Sure enough, she's woken up in the middle of the night, gently shook, her name whispered. Mags' heart nearly stops as she blinks in the dark. (For a moment, she thinks she's back in the arena. That's something she's never been able to shake. She doubts she ever will, old she is.) But realizing where she is now is maybe even scarier than thinking she's back in her arena. 

“Finnick?” she asks, only just masking her fear.

“The pack broke up,” Torr answers. “They're both still alive.” 

Mags nods, and heads down to where they monitor the games. She's not the only one staggering in. Gloss has deep-set circles underneath his eyes, and Cashmere is still in her pajamas, her hair pulled messily back from her face. They both look at her when she enters. 

Their group scans the monitors together. (The girl from One is the only death from the Career pack. It seems that the boys from One and Two turned on each other. Finnick and Trina high-tailed it out of there immediately, although the girl is limping now. Finnick seems uninjured.) He still has the sword, but didn't manage to grab anything else, including water or food. He's going to have to go back to the river if he's going to get anything, which is now closely guarded by the boy from One. Besides the Career, there are only two others left, a clever, small girl from Three, and a hulking boy from Seven.

Finnick finally stops running. His breathing is loud over through the sound systems. He glances around, looking as if he's lost his way. He builds a hasty set of tripwires around him in a circle and then sleeps for less than an hour. He's up before dawn. He begins trekking back toward the river, but his movements are slow. He has to check carefully to make sure he doesn't fall into one of his own traps. He's only halfway to the river when he finds the boy from Seven in one. He's almost got himself out by the time Finnick arrives. 

He's 18, at least 50 pounds and a foot taller than Finnick. He curses the minute he sees him, but Finnick braces himself, and jerks forward with the sword again. His blow lands in the boy's stomach, but doesn't kill him. The boy crashes to the ground instead, a hand against his stomach to hold his entrails inside. He gets to his feet, lumbering, and crashes after Finnick. Finnick swings with the sword – and misses. The boy punches Finnick, a messy blow, but a true one. Blood spattered, Finnick hits the ground, dazed. He manages to hold onto the sword. The other boy climbs on top of him, his hands wrapping around Finnick's neck. Finnick lets out a choking noise.

Mags' knees are shaking. Torr presses an arm to her elbow. She would swat him off, but she can't do anything but watch her boy.

Finnick lifts the hand holding the sword and plunges the tip in between the boy's ribs. The boy gasps, tightens his hold on Finnick's neck. Finnick's eyes are watering, tears streaming down his face. Blood vessels begin to burst, staining his eyes a hazy red.

But Finnick stabs him with the sword again and again, each action taking more and more out of Finnick as he has to jab the sword in and pull it out again. Finally, the boy groans, and tilts sideways off of Finnick. 

Finnick gasps. He rolls to his side and begins to cough, sucking in air unevenly. Tears still stream down his face. He tries to get to his feet – and falls the first time. On the second shot, he manages to get up. He swings about, sword in front of him, but the boy is choking on his own blood now. Finnick walks up to him, regardless, and sinks the sword through the boy's throat. Cannon.

…

By lunchtime, the remaining tributes are all traveling cautiously back toward the river. They need water. With the exception of Finnick and the boy from Two, they seem to be having trouble navigating the maze of traps Finnick set with the Careers. (The girl from Three gets caught, but frees herself before anyone finds her. The boy from One hasn't dared to leave the river, but moves in between a set of three spots.)

Mags knows from experience that everything will be done within the next 48 hours. Sponsors have been pouring in, ready to pick from the remaining five tributes. If things don't play out soon, the gamemakers will begin to intervene. (Already, the river seems to be flooded with more fish. The boy from One actually was spiked through the hand, and is wearing a messy tourniquet, but was dizzy with poison for half the day. He would have been easy picking if anyone had been close enough to see him.)

She's watching so intently that she doesn't hear her name being called at first. It takes Torr tapping her in the shoulder to realize that she's being summoned. One of President Snow's secretaries is standing in the doorway. All of the mentors look at her as if they haven't seen another person ever.

“This better be good,” she warns the girl as she hobbles after her, taken down to the reception area. 

“Savera Aldjoy is here to see you, ma'am,” the girl answers, somehow both respectfully and indifferently.

Savera Aldjoy. Mags is surprised to hear the name. The Aldjoys own nearly all the media companies in the Capitol. Savera is Snow's cousin twice-removed or something like that. Mags can't remember. They're a powerful family in the rankings of Capitol elite though. They casually throw their money around the games, but Mags has never met any of them in person. She's heard enough though – enough to know that Savera's got the snake-like inheritance of the Snow family.

The secretary opens the door for Mags. Inside the room – which is mostly made of windows – is Savera Aldjoy.

Her outfit, as usual, is done in the ostentatious style of the Capitol: The top of her dress glitters in the sunlight streaming in their windows, done to look as if it's made out of fish scales, orange and gold. They hug tight to her body, flaring into an enormous collar that surrounds most of her face. The dress portion has long sleeves, and the scales slide past her hips and then disappear in advent of bright green tulle. The bottom is painted with gold, small swirls. Her wig is a razor-straight bob that poofs out from her head. It's done in the same glaring gold with a thick green streak on the left side of her head.

“You're Mags Cohen?” she asks, smiling with green lips. “Finnick Odair's mentor?” She's smoking lazily, something that gives off an herbal scent. Her cigarette holder is long, and done, of course, in gold to match her outfit. 

“Yes,” Mags answers bluntly, taking a seat across from the woman. The secretary takes another chair, at a distance, but quietly begins to take notes.

“As you know, my husband and I like to support one of the tributes every year,” Savera begins, tapping ash onto the floor. “We've taken quite the shine to Finnick.” 

Mags doesn't answer. 

“Only 14, yes?” 

“Yes,” Mags says, clearing her throat.

Savera lets out a thoughtful hum. She taps her long nails across the table.

“That would be a record, wouldn't it? Youngest ever?” Savera isn't looking at Mags this time though, but down at the secretary.

“Yes, Mrs. Aldjoy,” the girl answers on cue. “The Hunger Games have never had a victor younger than 15.”

Savera eyes roam back to Mags.

“And is he a virgin?”

The question stops Mags cold. On impulse she nearly snaps that she doesn't see how that has anything to do with sponsoring Finnick. She only manages to hold her tongue because she knows how much money the Aldjoy family has. And she can't put Finnick's life at risk – no matter what. So, the pause hangs in the air.

“Yes,” Mags answers – with relative certainty. 

Savera smiles. (Mags expects poison to drip from between her lips.)

“Now, honey, if we're going to make history, we're going to do it in style,” Savera leans forward – as much as she can in that dress, anyway. “I want to do something _special_ for these games, do you understand? Something they're still going to be talking about 10 years from now.”

Mags pauses, weighs her words.

“He's very gifted with a trident.”

“A trident!” Savera trills with laughter, points with two fingers down at where the secretary is sitting. “A trident,” she repeats. “Custom-made for Finnick Odair. Whatever the cost.” 

She pats the back of Mags' hands with one of her own. 

“And you'll tell me whatever else he needs,” Savera says, with what she probably thinks to be a warm smile. “He's our boy now, and he's going to win.”

…

She watches him, her knuckles curled against her mouth. He tries to sleep through the night, but keeps startling himself out of his dreams. When sunlight breaks again, the shadows are visible underneath his eyes. 

( _I love you_ , she thinks. _And I can forgive you if you don't come home_. 

She doesn't know if she can forgive herself if he doesn't come home. She doesn't know if she can forgive herself if he does come home.)

…

The trident drops down in the middle of the afternoon, mere feet from where Finnick stands. He freezes when he sees it, almost as if he thinks it might be a mirage. It continues to beep though, and he reaches for it if only to stop the noise that will give away his position.

“Jesus fuck,” Haymitch says when he sees it. The rest of the room is silent as well. Torr looks over his shoulder at Mags, his expression unreadable. 

It's clear how expensive the trident is. Most of the weapons in the games are generic. But this trident is unforgettable. The production of it had to be quick, but all the same, it gleams. It's been made to match Finnick's height. The weight of it fits perfectly in his hands. He deftly maneuvers it in circles a few times, trying it out – and finds no fault with it. 

He drops the sword almost instantly. 

When he starts to move again, his feet are faster and surer.

Minutes after Finnick receives the trident, the girl from Three veers into the campground of the boy from One. After his own encounter with the fish, he's made cunning use of them. He managed to catch one of the poisoned ones, dashed its brains out on a rock, and then laced one of his knives with the poison.

Mags watches them careen toward each other, and she can see how this will play out, as if it's played out a thousand times before. She just _knows_ implicitly, and she thinks on what kind of woman she must be, to know these things. 

The boy only manages to gash open the girl's arm. It bleeds, red and pretty, down her side. She flees, thinking she's gotten away. But the poison is deep in her bloodstream. She starts to stumble. 

Mags leaves the room as her cannon sounds. She goes back up to her room, but she doesn't sleep. She doesn't know if she'll ever sleep again. 

…

When she comes back into the room, no one will look at her. Something has happened. _Finnick_. 

But there he is on the screen, fine and alive. His eyes are dark, and he wears a necklace of bruise around his throat. Each finger of the boy from Seven is marked on Finnick's throat, the last vestiges of the boy's life. 

She doesn't dare to ask what's happened, but takes a copy of the last few hours of footage back with her and begins to pan through them. She keeps everything framed tight to Finnick. He's near the river now too, keeps coming and going to get water, but is downstream from the boy from One. He's begun to clock the other boy's motions. 

Halfway through, there is rustling near Finnick's campground. He's caught another tribute. He hikes up to where the net is nestled near the branches of a tree. Trina struggles inside it.

“Finnick!” she calls when she sees him, her voice gone hopeful. (After all, he's her last ally, is he not?)

Finnick studies her for a moment, the trident still loose at his side. His head is cocked, tilting toward his left shoulder. (Her smart boy, she thinks. His brightness and keenness is still so obvious.) 

“Finnick?” Trina asks again, creeping doubt this time. He raises the trident.

Mags looks away from the screen, but it doesn't block the noise. Trina begins to plead with Finnick. But then there's the wet sound of the tines of the trident tearing through flesh. Trina screams, the sound high. Finnick makes quick, neat work of it though, because that's what he's been trained to do. 

Mags glances up at again, through tear-blurred eyes. Finnick wipes the trident down impassively, blood splattered against one of his cheeks. 

This is why the others wouldn't speak to her when she entered the room. Almost any sins are allowed in the Hunger Games; you do what you must to survive, and that is the single rule that all victors live by. But even amongst them, there's a sense of disquiet at seeing a tribute willing to kill his district partner prior to the finale. It's happened all the same, but in these moments, before the memory of the games can be pushed away, they can question what sort of monster they might be letting out of the arena.

Mags doesn't allow herself to weep. She doesn't have such luxuries anymore. But neither does she go back down to the control room until Torr comes to get her. The boy from Two has been killed by the boy from One. There are two tributes left in the Hunger Games. Finnick is one of them.

…

Finnick and the boy from One dance around each other all throughout the night. Neither sleeps. The boy from One keeps trying to catch more of the poisoned fish. He manages to get one and repeats the same process with another one of his knives. 

Finnick is the one who loses patience first. He takes what he undoubtedly considers to be the upper hand and rushes the boy from One. It's messy, and oh God, not what Mags would recommend. His footing is too sure; he's too confident in the reach of the trident. He swings it in a clean downward arch, but the other boy is ready for him. He rolls away, gets out from underneath Finnick. He throws one knife at Finnick, and it catches him in the shoulder. Finnick's balance is thrown off. He careens messily to one side. The other boy darts forward, gets easily in under Finnick's defense. He punches up with the poisoned knife, and wedges it between Finnick's ribs.

Finnick gasps. He stumbles backward, and falls into the river. He's underwater, carried downstream by the current, the only thing keeping the boy from One from finishing him off immediately. 

The other boy tosses a knife, almost languidly, as he follows, at a distance. Finnick is facedown in the water, showing no signs of life at all. (But he's not dead, Mags thinks, hands curled tightly at her side. He hasn't let go of the trident, so he's not dead. Get up, Mags wills him. Get up and finish it.) 

The river dips down, and goes deep. Finnick disappears underneath the surface. Mags stares at the screen, unable to comprehend. Not like this. Finnick can't drown. 

The boy from One is growing complacent. He throws a knife in after Finnick with a lazy turn of his wrist. He's just waiting for the cannon at this point, and has bought into the belief that he's the victor. So have most of the mentors in the room. Seeder pats Mags on the arm as she walks past. Chaff nods his head in a deferential sort of way. 

“It's better this way,” he says gently. 

Gloss and Cashmere are still glued to the screens. Cashmere's arms are crossed tightly in front of her. 

“Are we allowed to get the champagne yet?” Enobaria asks crassly. 

Torr comes to stand by her, and she knows that even he thinks it's over now. Finnick isn't surfacing, although there's a faint stain of red in the river now. He's bled out too much, she tells herself. Even if he hadn't, the knife was poisoned. (But his cannon still has sounded – his cannon –)

Finnick breaks through the surface of the water. He jerks forward, planting only one foot near the edge. The trident is still in his hand. He arches forward, and jabs the trident through the other boy's throat. His eyes are still wide as he collapses to the ground. He has no time to defend himself. 

Finnick gasps messily and drops the instant he lets go of the trident. His knees splash in the water, and he pushes a hand against the ragged, bleeding wound on his side. A cannon booms overhead. Finnick looks at the blood in between his fingers, and then drops into the water. He rolls onto his back and his eyes close. 

“The winner of the 65th Annual Hunger Games: Finnick Odair!” Cladius Templesmith trills. 

The screen goes dark.


	3. Chapter 3

The gamemakers have to have an antidote to the poison, Mags thinks. She's moving as quickly as she can back toward the roof. Torr is at her side, trying to support her. In the distance, the hovercraft is already moving toward the tribute center. Torr says something to her, but she can't hear him. 

The hovercraft lands, gusting wind out toward them. It feels like years since she gave Finnick up in this same spot.

The medical staff disembark. Finnick is splayed on a stretcher in between them, an IV dripping into his arm. He's still unconscious. Mags stares at him as they go racing past. He looks a far cry from the boy who volunteered on the sands of Four. He's far too pale. The bruises under his eyes and around his neck stand out in even starker contrast. They have to have stabilized him before they moved him, but his appearance is still startling. 

She follows down after him.

It seems like a thousand people buzz around Finnick when they reach the medical center. (They have one job now: They can't let him die. Every games needs its victor. There will be hell to play if they let him slip away.) She only half listens to what the doctors are saying (worrying over the poison, worrying over the state of his lungs). 

They fix him the best they can, and then it's just waiting. Mags settles at Finnick's bedside, and she doesn't leave. Nurses came in and out constantly, checking all of his vital signs. 

But when he wakes up, Mags is the only one there. She doesn't even realize what's happened until she feels him shyly reach for her hand. She looks up, almost incredulously, and then squeezes his hand warmly. (Her fingers shake in his.) 

He blinks unevenly. She's not sure he knows where he is – they have him on so many pain medications right now.

“Are you going to tell me a story?” he asks, and his voice is rough. 

“Of course,” she tells him. She runs her other hand back through his hair. His eyes close, and he's back asleep. She knows he can't hear her, but she tells him his story anyway. 

…

They let him rest for only two days. On the third day, they erase his bruises, and his stylist team floods his room. They finish cleaning him up, put him in a simple suit and he's sent up to President Snow. This is the first day that Finnick seems to have realized what he's done, that he's won the Hunger Games – youngest ever. He keeps glancing back over at her. She wants to fuss, really she does. But she just smiles back at him, trying to reassure him that everything is okay, because she doesn't know that it is. 

She isn't allowed in for his meeting with the president, but he comes out, pleased with himself. His interview with Flickerman is that night. She wants to tell him not to be vain, to be careful of what he says on stage, but she doesn't know exactly what she's trying to protect him from now. (The enemies in the arena were so clear cut. Now, everything feels shadowed and looming.) She clicks her tongue as she adjusts his collar, but doesn't say anything. He keeps peering out from behind the curtain at the massive crowd all waiting to see him.

“There are so many people,” he points out to her, and he's actually glowing now.

“No more than when you did your other interview,” Mags answers briskly.

Finnick scoffs.

“They're all here to see _me_ ,” he says, grinning. 

Mags just tuts again, more worried this time. But her disapproval does nothing to dent Finnick's excitement. He still tires quickly, and favors his uninjured side quite clearly when he walks. But when Flickerman calls him out, Finnick fairly bounces out onto the stage to meet him. He looks coltish and young, but flushes with pleasure when Flickerman compliments him.

Flickerman's hand doesn't leave Finnick's knee again, and Finnick is smiling, smiling, smiling, flashing white teeth and dimples at the crowd. The Capitol loves her boy. But as she watches him, laughing with Flickerman, Mags feels likes she's losing him by inches. 

…

Returning home is a relief. Finnick's newfound celebrity status is obvious even in Four, but he's more grounded here, especially when his family moves with him into his new house. He's lived with Mags for most of his life, but he acts as if everything is new because it all belongs to _him_. 

He drops out of school despite Mags' protests that he should still finish. (“Why?” he asks blankly. “I'm a victor now. What's the point?”) He takes to spending most of his days out on the beach, swimming or fishing. 

(In truth, she doesn't know if she's grateful or worried about how he easily he seems to slide back into civilian life. 

“Do you want to talk about anything that happened?” she asks once, just before his 15th birthday.

“What?” Finnick answers, brow knitted.

“In the arena? Do you have nightmares about it?” 

He just looks at her as if she's being peculiar, and then heads off to continue with his day.)

She manages to keep his 15th birthday a small affair, although it's difficult. She orders one of his favorite cakes and knits him a warm sweater. It's just the immediate family, but, it's then that she realizes there's a burgeoning distance between Joff and his son. Joff seems to visibly avoid looking at Finnick. And it's clear from how Finnick stands when he's besides his father, that he has noticed this new treatment. Joff has never been open in his love for Finnick, but this is something else. (On the rare occurrence that he does look at Finnick, he stares at his son as if he doesn't know who he is.)

The months slide by, and Finnick hits a growth spurt. His shoulders grow broader. (More man than boy now.) 

(“Goodness, look at you,” Finnick's stylist breathes when she comes to measure the suits for his Victory Tour.)

Mags suspects it's a precursor of what is to come. She would give anything to put this moment off. It's made more difficult by Finnick's excitement. (She's lost for what to do with him so often. She's never seen a victor like him before. He doesn't talk about his games, no, but neither does he seem to show any remorse for the tributes he killed to get to his crown.)

The outlying districts dampen his excitement only slightly. He's never seen poverty like this before. (There are poorer parts of Four, certainly, but nothing like Twelve and Eleven.) They don't cheer for Careers here. They accept them with weary resignation. It's outside of Twelve that Mags hears him having a nightmare for the first time. She's tempted to ask him about it the next morning, but refrains. Finnick acts as if nothing is wrong, and she accepts his performance.

He's charming and polished in each of his speeches – the best distraction she's seen from a victor in years. 

And he's utterly excited when they arrive in the Capitol. There's a thick crowd waiting for them when they pull into the station, unlike anything she's ever seen. They scream his name when he peeks out the window, grinning and waving. 

Mags tries to remember how to breathe.

Everyone touches him. All the time. The moment they disembark, there's a constant stream of people. They run their hands over his arms, over his chest, over any part of him they can reach. They hug him. They kiss him, which never fails to make him blush, and then smile, dimples on display. It only makes them love him more.

For his suit in the Capitol, his stylist puts him in only the jacket, no shirt underneath. Finnick tugs at the sleeves, looking uncertainly down at himself. The faint flush of blond hair on his stomach is visible. His skin is dusted in gold. 

(“He's too young for this,” Mags says pointedly to the stylist. The woman stares at Mags as if she's insane.

He goes to the party with no shirt.)

The presidential mansion is done in shades of gold and gleaming turquoise. Tridents are everywhere. The centerpieces of the table are filled with water and goldfish – done in actual gold – that swim happily around for the first hour or so. Mags has never seen a party so crowded before. Finnick is passed from group to group, and everyone wants to know everything about him. (When did he learn to swim? And does he have a girlfriend back home? And did he get to keep that pretty trident of his?) Finnick handles the crowds easily – no, it's more than that. He enjoys this. He loves the attention. 

He's dragged out onto the dance floor as soon as the music starts, and Mags tries to keep him within her line of sight, but he keeps being passed from partner to partner. She doesn't think he finishes a single dance with one person. And then they start sneaking him the drinks, so he's pleasantly flushed by the time he's into his third drink, and his laughter is audible from almost wherever he is. 

President Snow comes out to congratulate Finnick before giving his speech – another rarity. Victors come to Snow, not the other way around. Finnick smiles and shakes his hand. Mags' skin crawls. She wants Finnick as far away from Snow as possible, but there is nothing she can do here.

Snow toasts Finnick from the middle of the dance floor. 

“I would like to congratulate Mr. Odair on making history,” Snow says clearly, glass raised up. “We are proud of our newest son of Panem, and look forward to his many accomplishments!” 

The applause is thunderous, and Finnick holds up his own glass in thanks, and polishes that one off as well. The crowd hoots its approval. Another glass is almost instantly pressed into his hand. 

“Not so much, Finnick,” Mags softly when she finally makes it back to his side. (When did he begin tower over her like this?)

“Mags,” he drawls, mimicking the Capitol accent with scary accuracy. “It's my night. I only get this once, right?” He is teasing, coy, and she is about to argue, but then he is pulled back away, swallowed by the crowd once again.

“You should be congratulated as well, Miss Cohen,” Snow says, appearing from behind her. “He's going to make a very fine victor.”

Mags clenches her jaw. What can she say to him? Nothing. She cannot plead for mercy for him, because he knows her weaknesses already, and he is cruel.

“Finnick,” Snow says, raising his voice, calling Finnick back to him. Finnick's head bobs, and he smiles on command. Dazzling. 

“Come, I have someone I want you to meet.” 

Finnick says something to his dancing partner, who laughs prettily as she lets Finnick go. Finnick moves back across the dance floor, his pants dipping lower on his hips. He joins the president at his side, and Snow wraps an arm around him, murmuring something into his ear. Mags reaches a hand for Finnick, nearly tugging him back, but stops. (What can she do? She can't tell him not to go with the president.) Finnick notices the motion, and looks belatedly back at her over his shoulder. But then his attention is gone again, riveted to the president.

Mags watches them the entire way as they climb up the stairs and head into the presidential mansion. 

Savera Aldjoy is at the entrance waiting for them. She smiles at Finnick as he approaches and reaches out one clawed hand, cupping his jaw. Then the three of them disappear inside.

She catches only glimpses of him for the rest of the night. She feels as if she's blindly chasing him – has had nightmares like this, where she can't find him. It grows late, dwindling into the small hours of the morning. Finally, only the most rampant of partygoers are left. She realizes she hasn't seen Finnick for the last hour or two. She begins to look for him with more concern, pacing through the mansion and then back out onto the dance floor.

Snow's secretary finds her first, the same cold girl who had brought her to Savera Aldjoy during the games.

“I'm supposed to escort you back to the train, Miss Cohen,” the girl says without looking at Mags. It's like she's reading from a script.

“We need to find Finnick first,” Mags says firmly.

“Mr. Odair has requested to stay in the Capitol for awhile longer. President Snow has granted him permission,” the girl answers in the same tone. 

“President Snow should be reminded that _Mr. Odair_ is a child,” Mags snaps. 

The girl looks at her, metallic grey eyes conveying a complete indifference.

“Mr. Odair is a victor,” she corrects. 

…

Mags does not go easily. But she goes all the same. 

Finnick is not on the train.

…

 

A week passes, and then another. Finnick's parents don't come to ask her where he is. It seems Snow has dispatched some letter, something paltry. Something that is surely full of lies. Why? Mags obsesses. Why has Snow kept him? Is he going to keep him? Will Finnick ever come home again? Or is Snow intending to keep him permanently in the Capitol? 

Another week passes. And then another. (She despairs. Good God, she left him the Capitol. What has she done? How has she allowed for this to pass?)

It is a month before Finnick comes home. (She doesn't actually know the exact date he comes back. She looks out the window one day and he's down at the beach with his two little sisters. They're both in the water, splashing and screaming, but he's seated on the beach, still wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She goes down immediately. His hair still looks odd, too full of product. 

He squints up when she comes into his line of sun. And immediately looks back down. 

“Were you not going to come and say hello, boy?” she asks, dropping down beside him. (It will be hell to get up later.) 

He shrugs. (Her heart clenches.) 

She leans in to give him a hug, and he pulls away, out of her grasp. Skittish. She stares at him, but he won't meet her gaze. He's staring determined down at the sand in between his toes. 

“What's happened?” she asks him softly, but with obvious intensity.

“Nothing,” he answers, and lifts his head to look out at the water. (Sara is shouting, “Finnick! Finnick! Watch this!”)

“What's happened?” Mags repeats again, more firmly, grabbing him by the jaw to try and make him meet her gaze. 

“Get off me, Mags,” he says, sounding cross. He shrugs her away. (“Come throw me, Finnick!” Coral echoes a moment later. He gets up out of the sand and moves down the beach toward where his sisters are. He doesn't take off his shirt before dipping into the water.)

Mags watches him. He's laughing by the time he reaches the girls. It almost sounds real. 

…

He is evasive for the next few months. She barely sees him. (When she does, it is snatches of him. Bounding out after the girls, whose company he seems to favor now.) His mood flips like a switch. He'll go days without leaving the house, and then spend the next week on the beach as if nothing's wrong. 

For all her knowledge on the behavior of victors, she is at a loss. She falters, every day, not knowing when to press him and when to leave him be. 

Too soon, the next games creep up on them. The heavy envelope arrives at her house, naming her mentor again. (She has stacks of the same.) Torr receives another as well, which is a small relief: Finnick won't be expected to mentor at 15.

He walks her down to the train when it comes to pick her up. It's the most normal thing they've done since he won his tour. He drops his gaze when she leans into hug him, but he hugs her in return. She clings to him for a moment too long. 

“Be good,” she tells him. He smiles and nods, waves as she gets on. 

The 66th Games are bloody and short for District Four. Both their tributes are killed at the Cornucopia. No other district will risk another Finnick Odair.

…

If possible, he is taller when she comes home. He towers well above her now. His shoulders have finished filling out; he's built like a swimmer. (She remembers the sweet curls he had when he was a child. She can't even reach to smooth his hair out now.) 

After the 66th Games, they start to fall back into some of their old routines. He comes over every Sunday morning and makes her breakfast. They walk along the beach. He chatters incessantly about whatever he's heard – about trips he takes out on his own boat now, or idle gossip he heard down in the market. He'll be okay, she thinks. 

(That's a lie.)

His 16th birthday approaches. He says that he wants to do it just like last year, something small. A week beforehand, an envelope arrives at his house. She watches the messenger from the Capitol carry it to him. He rips it open hastily, and then stops as he reads it. When he looks up, he looks directly at her, and she realizes she's been caught. 

(“President Snow is throwing a party for me in the Capitol,” he says. He smiles when he says it, but she's starting to read through the lines, able to tell when he's happy about it or not.)

She waits, but isn't surprised when her own invitation doesn't come. She takes Finnick down to the train when it comes to get him. 

“I could still go with you,” she says; a pointless offer. 

He has the good grace to laugh at her. He kisses her on the cheek, and then he is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While not terribly graphic, trigger warnings do apply for this chapter. (Including suicidal thoughts.)

The rumors flood out of the Capitol of just how wild Finnick Odair's 16th birthday party is. Unparalleled, they say. Even bigger, brighter – and more expensive – than his Victory Tour. They say that President Snow made a gift of a fully furnished Capitol apartment to their favored victor. They say that Finnick spent a good chunk of the evening with the Aldjoys. But reports diverge on where Finnick wound up at the end of the night. No one seems to believe that Finnick actually went home to this new apartment. 

Mags tries to ignore all of it. She doesn't succeed. 

She takes Lucy's ring out of the back of her drawer on the morning of Finnick's actual birthday and holds it in her palm until the metal warms against her skin. 

He comes home, and all of the differences she noticed in him are gone. He wears an easy smile all the time. He comes over like clockwork. These new changes are more alarming. He can run circles around her in conversations – when she asks him something, anything about the Capitol, they'll end up talking about something else. (She won't realize what's happened until 15, 30 minutes later.) He redirects topics deftly, almost invisibly. 

He takes his sisters down to the beach. He teaches them how more complicated strokes. He starts instructing other Careers in the district, particularly on to wield a trident. (His motions are smooth as ever, beautiful in their simplicity. You can't tell that he's killed people with such a weapon.) He laughs. He charms. He tells jokes. To all of Panem, Finnick Odair is what has always been expected of a victor. He is not only grateful to be alive, he thanks Panem for his life, and lives deeply. 

(He is called back to the Capitol again during the Victory Tour. When he returns, she presses him, more relentlessly. And the harder she presses, the better he gets at deflecting.)

The envelopes come for the 67th Games. In an unprecedented move, Snow sends three: one each for her, Torr, and Finnick. Mags frowns. Torr ignores the whole thing. Finnick sleeps almost the entire train ride up the Capitol. (Both their tributes, despite being older than Finnick, are jittery and excited to meet him.) He smiles easily at them when they sit down for dinner. 

For the opening ceremonies and interviews, Finnick is Mags' shadow. It seems almost like Snow has brought Finnick here to learn how to mentor – and that Mags thinks, she can deal with. With his popularity, it's not surprising that he will be mentoring soon. 

There is a new stylist that trails after Finnick – making sure that he looks good for all public events, even if Finnick is no longer the star of the show. (This, Mags has never seen. Of course, victors from One and Two have always been more concerned with their appearances and trying to mimic the fashion of the Capitol. But she's never _seen_ a victor have a stylist of his or her own.) Mags does not like the man. And she does not pretend to. He's constantly underfoot and Mags sends him away with tuts of her tongue.

Their boy is killed in the opening bloodbath, taking a sword to the back. (Their girl doesn't go for the Cornucopia. She turns tail and runs, a better strategy these days.) 

Finnick stares openly at the screen, at the technicolor splashes of red in high definition. 

“Mr. Odair,” Snow's secretary says from the doorway. “President Snow would like to see you.”

Almost every mentor in the room turns to look at Finnick, but he rises gracefully, non-plussed, and heads out of the room. Once he's gone, everyone's eyes shift to Mags. Gloss whispers something to Cashmere that no one makes out. Cashmere shakes her head. 

…

“Mags,” Torr says quietly, but with obvious urgency. 

She blinks, realizing that she's fallen asleep in her chair. In front of her, the Hunger Games play on, though all the tributes are hunkered down for the night, including their girl. 

“What?” Mags asks, unable to fathom what's wrong. Their tribute is at least a mile away from any other, and there have been no mutts unleashed in this arena yet.

“Come upstairs,” he says, and holds out an arm to help her up. She is loathe to accept it, but he's so concerned that it has her spooked. She hefts herself up out of the chair, her knees cracking audibly. Haymitch shifts for a moment, but then falls back asleep on his couch. A bottle of whiskey is half drunk beside him.

It's only once they're securely in the elevator, heading up to the fourth floor that Torr speaks again.

“Something's wrong with Finnick,” he says uneasily. 

“What?” she says again. 

“He's in the bathroom,” Torr answers. “Back up on fourth floor. That new stylist was waiting for him.” He says the last part so distastefully that Mags doesn't know whether to feel relieved or more frightened that her intuition was right. 

Mags walks out onto the fourth floor, Torr right beside her. He gets the door open for her. The lights are all off inside their rooms, and Mags can't see the stylist anywhere. She stands in the doorway for only a second when she hears a low cry from the bathroom. 

She walks faster than she has in years. Torr is still faster. He doesn't even try for the door handle, just kicks at the door once – and then again, and the cheap wood splinters underneath the force of his blows. 

Mags is so grateful he is here. She freezes at the sight in front of her immediately. She swears her heart actually skips a beat. It's only Torr who keeps moving. 

Finnick's stylist has him pinned against the far side of the shower. Both of them are naked and Finnick's hands scrabble uselessly against the tiles. His motions are disjointed. 

Torr grabs the stylist by the nape of his neck and throws him across the room. The man shouts, an indistinct burr of noise. Finnick slides down the shower, as if his knees can't support him. Torr goes for the stylist again, grabbing him before he can recover. He bashes his head into the mirror, which shatters on impact. Blood streams down the corner of the man's temple.

“Torr!” Mags shouts, because, no matter what's happened, she can't let him kill a stylist. That will bring hell down on all of them. Torr freezes, still taut with anger. 

Mags kicks at the stylist, unable to help herself. He takes her weak blow.

“Get out!” she hisses at him, seething with anger. “ _Get out!_ ”

The man does. He doesn't even grab his clothes. He just races out into the hallway. Torr backs off immediately, leaving Mags and Finnick alone. Finnick is still sitting bonelessly at the bottom of the shower, hot water hitting him. 

Mags hurries over to him. She shuts the water off and the kneels down by him. He looks up at her, his reactions still slow. His pupils are blown wide, and she can barely see the ring of green surrounding them. A strange flush still rises along his skin.

“Oh, my baby,” Mags murmurs. She sits down alongside him, not caring that her pants are now soaked. She brings his forehead to her shoulder and begins to run her fingers through his wet hair. He lets out a dry, high sob. He's saying something, mumbled into her shirt, but she can only catches a word or two. (And then she realizes he's saying, _didn't want you to know_ , over and over again.) Mags shushes him. 

“It's not your fault, Finnick,” she insists, but her voice breaks halfway through. She can scarcely get the words out.

“Isn't this what victors do?” he asks, sounding tired. 

She doesn't have an answer for him. She just keeps whispering quiet reassurances to him until he falls asleep against her. She doesn't know what to do. She cries while he sleeps, making sure not to make a sound, because she doesn't dare wake him.

Around dawn, Torr calls a doctor up to their floor. Together, Torr and the doctor get Finnick into bed. He asks for her, repeatedly, words slurred together. She goes to him immediately, and he quiets down and goes back to sleep. (The doctor is non-plussed by all of this. He barely does anything, and Mags know this is the hard truth of any doctor they will find in the Capitol. She almost regrets Torr calling him.) 

When she's fairly certain that Finnick isn't going to wake up again, she gets up and calls for a car to come and get her.

“Where are you going?” Torr asks, confused. (One of them needs to get back down to check on the status of the games. Torr had peeked down briefly, making sure that everything was fine, but with morning, things will start to pick back up.) 

“To see Snow,” Mags answers waspishly. 

“Mags,” Torr tries to argue, but she's beyond arguing. She walks out, ignoring his protests, which follow her all the way down to the street. She looks a mess still, her clothes barely dried, hair flyaway. She gets in the car, closes the door behind her. The driver doesn't look at her, but takes her to the presidential mansion without question. 

Snow's good-for-nothing secretary meets her at the doorway. 

“President Snow is still having breakfast,” the girl says, trying to block Mags. Mags smacks her out of the way – getting a reaction from the girl for the first time in years. She walks straight past everyone, opening doors until she finds Snow, still in his pajamas, all of things, calmly eating breakfast with the games on in front of him.

“Miss Cohen,” Snow says, and although he must be surprised to see her, he doesn't show it. He gestures at a chair, but Mags doesn't take it. She's shaking with anger. She levels one finger at him. 

“How dare you,” she says, voice rising with each word. “ _How dare you_. He's still a _boy_.”

“He's a victor,” Snow says, patting at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He has the audacity to not even pretend he doesn't know they're talking about Finnick. 

“He's 16!” Mags shouts, exasperated.

“He's a victor,” Snow repeats again, but more firmly this time. He puts down his knife and fork and looks at her, hard. 

“That _stylist_ \--” Mags begins to spit, but Snow cuts her off.

“Has been dealt with,” Snow finishes neatly. “He took privileges far beyond what was allowed. It will not happen again. You are, of course, free to peruse the new candidates for the position if you think your approval is necessary.” The last part is said mockingly. 

“You're selling him,” Mags says softly, the words nearly a whisper. 

“To a small and vetted set of clientele,” Snow answers. “Come now, Mr. Odair is serving his government admirably.”

Mags is forced to sit now, because her knees won't support her. She goes down, because she can read into the truth of what Snow is saying: He's being sold now, but it's nothing compared to what it will be like when he turns 18. 

Snow resumes eating. Mags' stomach clenches. 

“Now, either you may join me for breakfast, Miss Cohen, or I'm going to have to ask you leave,” Snow says. “After all, I'm sure you're quite busy with your mentoring.” 

Mags just looks at him stonily, but then rises and turns back toward the door.

“Oh,” Snow says abruptly, halting her her when she says halfway. “And, _Mags_ , if you ever question me like this again, I will make sure he pays for it.”

She doesn't dare look over her shoulder at him. 

…

When she arrives back at the tribute center, Finnick is still asleep. She doesn't wake him. Instead, she falls asleep on the couch, despite knowing she will regret it later. She wakes midday to the sound of movement in one of the bedroom. She's fairly certain that Torr is still watching the games, which means that it can only be Finnick. 

She gets up and knocks quietly on the door. The noises stop.

“Finnick?” she asks. A pause too long, but then the door opens.

“Hey,” Finnick greets her, smiling broadly. (She was right to have been suspicious of that smile all along. She knows that now.) 

“I was going to order up some lunch,” he says, talking smoothly and evenly. “Do you want me to get you anything?” He looks at her expectantly, and she's lost for words. (How is she supposed to fix this? She remembers, too clearly, thinking that she would pay any price to bring him home, and she carries that sin heavily in her heart now. She should have known. She should never have blindly agreed to Savera Aldjoy's deal.) 

“Mags?” he asks again, playful smile on his face. 

(What does she do in the face of this? Does she force him to talk? Does she let him continue to ignore the fact that he's clearly begun to fall apart at the seams? Would either help? Will they both hurt?)

She crosses the room and wraps her arms around him, pats him twice on the back with a shaking hand. 

“I love you,” she says, kissing him on the cheek, something that's a stretch for her now. His mask has a fissure in it now: He's afraid. 

“It's not your fault,” she says again, because he needs to hear it in daylight, with a sober mind. “And I'm here.” 

His gaze drops down. His shoulders go tense. 

“Why don't you order me a sandwich,” she says a moment later, patting him on the arm. He nods and smiles weakly, trying to regain composure. 

…

She hates herself for it, but she helps interview the new stylists all the same. She understands what this person will be to Finnick – more than a stylist. A companion in the Capitol, someone who runs this side of his life, keeps his schedule, makes sure that he doesn't have to think about anything other than how he's _serving his government_. 

She doesn't want this life for him. She would trade anything to get him out of it. (That is a lie. Because she wouldn't trade his life, clearly.) 

But all the same, she can't stop it. So she needs to make sure that whoever is with him is not going to take advantage of the fact that he is 16 and in a place where he has no power. 

She hires a young woman, Melia, who is uncharacteristically serious for the Capitol. She is almost monotone, makes direct eye contact, and barely smiles. But she has high ambitions, and being a stylist to Finnick Odair is an easy way to get her work seen. 

Mags directly asks her what she thinks the attractive part of Finnick is. (One of the candidates had actually prepared a sonnet about Finnick's eyes.) Melia doesn't blink. 

“The ratio of his shoulders to his hips provides a challenge for suit-making,” she answers, almost clinically. 

…

Finnick is called back to the Capitol between then and the next set of games. She doesn't bother to hide her worry as she watches him go. Each time he comes back, he seems more set in the masks he wears. She can't tell with him anymore. Can't tell when anything he's saying is the truth and when he's actually happy. (Is he ever actually happy anymore?) 

He mentors for the next set of games, Torr left behind in Four. He'll be safe this time, Mags thinks. He can't doing anything else if he has to mentor, surely? (She is proven swiftly wrong. After the tribute Finnick worked with dies, he is plucked away from the other mentors.) 

The other mentors, the other victors, either stare or look away. (She begins to learn through their reactions which ones are also being sold. Cashmere comes to her later, when she's sure that no one else is paying attention, rests a soft hand against Mags' arm. “We try to take care of him,” she murmurs softly, and with more gentleness than she would have expected from a Career from District One. Gloss pretends not to notice the whole exchange.) 

A few times she checks back into the room to grab a fitful few hours of sleep, she finds Finnick, also asleep. He doesn't ever seem to make it to the room provided for him. Usually he sleeps on the couch, which he's too tall for. Once, she found him asleep on the bathroom floor, and it scared the hell out of her, because she thought he was hurt. He's always drunk. (Just the alcohol Mags thinks she could handle, but it's growing beyond that, she knows. The drugs will end up being the real problem, and she doesn't know how to ask him to avoid them. Who is she to ask him not to use any escape he has? But at the same time, how can she watch him start to slowly destroy himself?)

In the dim light of night, she catches sight of bruises: rings around his neck that are reminiscent of what he came out of how his games with. Around his ankles and wrists, rope-burned and red. 

In the piercing light of day, those things are always gone, neatly erased along with any signs of exhaustion. He is gleaming and perfect, more real than reality itself.

Her tribute dies, slipping through her fingers before she knows what's happened. In the shadows of her mind, she knows the same thing is happening to Finnick.

She goes home by herself on the train. Finnick is called to stay behind. 

The months drag on in this way. He comes and he goes; the tighter she tries to cling to him, the faster he seems to disappear. The more she worries aloud, the more actively he tries to pretend that nothing is okay. 

He turns 18, another party held in the Capitol, and she doesn't see him for a solid two months after his birthday. She only learns he's come home when she goes for a walk down on the beach in the middle of the night, and there he is, sitting in the low water lapping at the shore. At first, she thinks it's a trick, an illusion. Her boy is a ghost. She sits down next to him; the set of his shoulders is low, but still tight with muscles. He has his head rested against his arms, and even though the dark circles under his eyes have been erased, the light is missing from them. She tries to reconcile this image with the four-year-old boy she used to carry up to bed.

She can't.

She runs a hand quietly through the curls that still grow at the nape of his neck.

“Will you tell me a story?” he asks without opening his eyes. His voice sounds off. 

He's asleep by the end of the first sentence, but Mags finishes anyway. She whispers the happy ending. 

…

Shortly after his 19th birthday, Mags receives a phone call asking her to come to the Capitol. The train is coming overnight just for her. She has been around long enough to know this is not good. Finnick has been in the Capitol for the last month. As she packs her bag, she prepares herself for the worst. Her boy must be dead, her heart tells her. 

(That familiar surge of sentiment that had lasted throughout the entire 65th Games returns: Was she right in bringing him home? Is it okay for her to let him go now, or should she still be working to save him? There are so many parts to being a victor they don't tell you. They don't warn you what it will cost you. What goes into the arena is never what comes out. They don't tell you what it's like to mentor children, that you can't save them even if you bring them home. They don't tell you that being a mentor doesn't end when that child steps out of the arena. They don't tell you about midnight hours spent boarding trains to the Capitol and crying silent tears, because you're an instrument of damnation.)

The Capitol is still asleep when she arrives. Melia, with a clutch of Snow's men, is the one waiting for her. 

“Miss Cohen,” Melia says deferentially, nodding her head just a little. For a stylist, she is remarkably undone by Capitol standards. Mags doesn't even think she's wearing a wig. The girl nods at Snow's men to move ahead, and they head to get a sleek black car for them. They take Mags' bag with them.

Melia moves to Mags' side.

“He's in the hospital,” Melia says in a quiet voice. Her head is inclined just slightly, her entire body set to appear casual, in juxtaposition with her words. “He's overdosed for the second time this year.” 

Melia looks at her, almost imploring. 

Things are much worse than she originally thought, Mags realizes. She knows – the same as Melia – that Finnick is too smart to do this on accident. If he has overdosed twice this year, it's because he's doing it on purpose. (And Snow will know this too. Another fact that obviously hasn't slipped by Melia. If he manages to succeed, she will surely bear some measure of blame. Bringing Mags is here is as much to save Finnick as it is to save herself.)

They're escorted to the hospital and to Finnick's room – which is far out of the way. It'd be bad for business if anyone knew why Finnick Odair was here. But Mags is allowed to go into the room by herself. 

He's asleep, curled up onto his side, an array of machines beeping and humming softly around him. Even trying to make himself small as possible, and even in this setting, he still seems to loom large. He'd put on another few inches of height after his 18th birthday. (The Capitol is so enamored with the man he's grown into.) Yet, he looks pale now, and his hair is messily tousled instead of the artfully mussed look Melia so often aims for.

Mags settles down in the chair next to him and immediately reaches for one of his hands. And, oh, she must have been wrong about him being actually asleep, because the moment she wraps her hand around his, his eyes blink open, and he stares up at her as if he doesn't know who she is. He pulls his hand away from her. Mags ignores the schism of pain that opens in her heart.

“Why are you here?” Finnick asks. He rolls onto his other side so he doesn't have to look at her.

(What is she supposed to do? She has felt helpless many times in her life. She never thought she would feel more helpless than she did when she was Reaped, staring at her fate. But here she is now, so many years later, and this is worse. Why did no one warn her that there would be people she would love more than herself? Why did no one warn her that losing your life was not the worse thing that could happen?) 

She pushes herself to her feet, and she smooths a hand through his hair. (Those curls, the ones she had so loved when he was baby, are gone, clipped away by his stylist.) He stiffens. 

“You need to take care of yourself,” she tells him softly, as if he's come down with something as simple as cold. As if what he plagues him can be remedied through his own action. He rolls back over, and he stares at her, eyes accusing.

“Why did you bring me back?” he asks. (And, oh no. She's been afraid, so afraid, all these years that he would ask her that. _How could I not_?)

He sees her weakness.

“You knew, didn't you?” he presses. “You know what he would do?” 

(She had suspected all along. She had heard the rumors from the other districts, but Four had never had a victor like him before.)

“I loved you too much to let you go,” Mags says – and here she is, Mags Cohen, who has made some of the most powerful men in the country cower before her with a well-placed word, brought to her proverbial knees by the acknowledgement of her own selfishness and by the obvious pain it has caused him.

He scoffs, and she can see nothing of her child in him: He rolls his eyes skyward as if her very words are unbelievable.

“Love is a lie,” he tells her sourly. “Love is what people tell each other when they're trying to control each other, or when they're too afraid of their own loneliness.”

Her heart clenches. He can't believe that. Not her Finnick. (But why shouldn't he? Why should he believe anything else when everyone who has professed to love him since he was 14 has blindly used him for no other gain but their own? She is horrified to learn what has become normal for Finnick.)

“I loved your grandmother,” Mags says softly, the surest line of defense that she can think of using. But even that doesn't abate the anger that is consuming Finnick. 

“You were two lonely old women,” he tells her, voice sharp. But those words seem to halt even him. He draws back, going on the defense, expecting a retaliation. And she thinks to tell him not to talk about Lucy that way, but whatever he's going through now is bad enough. She doesn't need to compound his guilt. 

She smooths back his hair again and kisses his forehead. (She doesn't say anything when he starts to cry, when he wraps his arms around her and clings like he's four again.) 

“Baby, one day you will love somebody enough to understand,” she says. She doesn't let her voice break, but she's crying too. She holds him until he falls back asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

( _Annie Cresta_. He doesn't know, not then, that she's going to knock his world off its axis.) 

“Are you high?” 

The words slip out of Mags before she can call them back. She knows that this is not the right place nor time to call Finnick out on his persisting habit. (As far as she knows, he hasn't been back in the hospital since she was called to the Capitol. However, she's abundantly aware that there's a world of difference between what she knows and what has actually happened.) 

Finnick looks down at her, a turn of his head, and she can tell by his pupils that he is. 

“Just a touch,” he says flippantly, employing the smile that works on so many others. It had worked on her once upon a time too, but that's when it was real, given freely without expectation. Now, it's a con, a shared lie between himself and the Capitol that dictates what he is supposed to be. 

They are in the Justice Hall, waiting to be ushered out onto stage for the Reaping. They are both mentors for the 70th Hunger Games. It's only been five years since he'd won, and he's only 19, but sometimes it feels like it's been eons. The last five years of her life seem to have been more difficult than all the others put together. 

“You're about to be on television,” she says tersely. She knows she should let this go. Really, but her fear is spilling over. 

Finnick lets out a quiet laugh, one that she doesn't understand.

She turns fully to him, squaring her shoulders as if he doesn't hover more than a head above her.

“You are about to be responsible for the _lives_ of two of those children out there,” she says, pointing at the doors. Beyond them, all of District Four is lined up, rows and rows of children just waiting to see if death lights upon them. And toward the back, 17- and 18-year-olds eager to become the next Finnick Odair, to prove that they are fierce and fearless. To prove that they can conquer death and become the pride of their district.

Her words have the opposite effect of what she intends: Something sparks in Finnick, a dark anger that she's only glimpsed from time to time, something that reminds her of Snow. 

“Don't,” he says. His voice is low, taught. “I can't save a single one of them. Don't put the burden of their lives on me.”

“ _You_ are the last ally they're going to have,” Mags argues. “Even if they die, you are the last thing keeping them from dying alone, Finnick.”

“We all die alone, Mags,” Finnick says curtly. 

The door is opened for them, and Finnick flips like a switch: His smile is in place as he walks out, holding his arm out for her. He helps her to her seat and then goes to greet their escort. Their old one was promoted after Finnick's victory and this new one is young. She's rail thin, and always looks like she's about to fall over. She flushes with pleasure when Finnick presses a kiss to her cheek. He flirts with her, and she preens under his attention. 

Finnick takes a step back as the girl goes about her business. She snatches up a girl's name first.

“Annie Cresta!” she calls into the microphone. There's a pause, a moment of silence, and then a girl slides out of the group of 17-year-olds. She must be a Career because no one volunteers for her. Mags squints, trying to make her out. She doesn't know the girl. She's lanky and angular, a bit thin, but definitely a swimmer. Her hair is tied up, but as she walks forward, a few stands fall out of her ponytail and into her face.

She moves up to center stage without any fear, but looks around her as if the sight of everything is a bit too much to take in. She shakes Finnick's hand first and then the escort, and then hovers nearby, as if she's uncertain what to do with herself.

The boy is Reaped next, a small 13-year-old who is immediately replaced by a large Career. He comes up onto stage as well, and then they're off air. It's over. They're on the train. 

Mags tries to catch Finnick before they sit down for lunch on the train, but he heads to his room without checking with anyone else and sleeps for the rest of the day.

…

Finnick is around just enough that Mags can't complain. He works with Annie; he almost always ends up mentoring their female tribute. He doesn't like being around their male tributes, although he hides it well. (They are either always trying to compete with him or trying to copy him, and Mags isn't sure which one Finnick hates more. Their boy this year is the obvious contender. But Finnick and Mags both know well enough that obvious contenders don't always make for winners. They paint targets on their backs, and that's sometimes what allows for 14-year-olds to sneak in and steal the whole show.)

While he's there, Mags knows he's just going through the motions. He doesn't let himself get too close to the tributes anymore, not after the string of loses after his own games. It leaves him brittle when he makes a friend of their tributes and then has to watch them die in vivid color. 

Annie is quiet and serious, and listens intently to anything either of them say. (It's a nice change of pace to be around someone who isn't pulled in by Finnick's charisma. She doesn't flush when he walks into the room. She doesn't try to flirt with him at any given opportunity. She doesn't ask about the trident, but asks in her neat and keen way about the best way to make sure water is safe, and how to know how to trust a Career pack.) 

Finnick is gone by dinner most evenings. (With the advent of his 18th birthday, anyone who can afford him can now buy him.) He doesn't come back until the middle of the night, and then is up for breakfast and mentoring in the morning again. Mags has no idea what he's running off of, but he's bright and gleaming when she sees him.

The night before the games are to start, she wakes up to the sound of him stumbling in. She gets up, ties her robe about her, and plans on helping him get to bed. Just as she reaches her door, she hears voices coming from the living area.

“I didn't mean to wake you up,” Finnick says apologetically. (There's a hint of the boy she raised there, a sincerity she hasn't heard in months.)

“I shouldn't have fallen asleep on the couch.” 

It's Annie, her voice barely audible from where Mags is standing. 

She expects that to be the end of it, for the two of them to get up and head to their beds. She's surprised when she hears the couch groan underneath additional weight, Finnick sitting down at the other end. 

“Were you scared?” comes Annie's soft voice again.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry.” Annie tries to laugh it off. 

“I was,” Finnick says abruptly. “The morning of. Not before, I suppose. Mags had trained me for so long that I didn't think I could lose until the morning of the games.” 

Mags is surprised to hear an honest answer from him. This is the first actual conversation she's heard between the two of them. Everything else has been almost clinical, purely based around the games. She doesn't know what's inspired Finnick to sudden honesty. Probably that he's drunk, she thinks unfortunately.

“I'm scared to die,” Annie whispers.

“I'll be with you the entire time,” Finnick answers, just as soft. “You'll be okay.” 

There's nothing else after that even though neither of them gets up from the couch. Mags retreats, heading back toward her own bed. This one will hurt, she knows. She takes care not to underestimate any of her tributes, but she knows the odds are never in anyone's favor. The sheets are cold against her skin, and it takes her a long time to fall back asleep.

When she wakes up to a wet morning, the living room is empty. 

She and Finnick walk Annie and Philip down to the hovercraft, and then they're gone. Nothing passes between Annie and Finnick that shows the frank conversation they had the night before. Finnick is masked and posed once again. They head down to mentor headquarters.

…

This is the first time Finnick sits with her throughout the whole games. He goes from his normal state, passively indifferent, to near frantic when the games drag on. (Despite everything, despite his insistence that he can't save anyone, despite the insults he's thrown her way for bringing him back, he's grown fond of their girl. It isn't hard to see why. She's scared witless, but resilient. She's in a bad position, they all know that. She has no sponsors despite Finnick trying to scrounge some up. Mags doesn't ask what he does in Annie's name. But no one is rooting for a girl who is hiding, who keeps closing her eyes and covering her ears, trying to wash away the image of a headless tribute.)

Finnick, in his contrary way, moves between residing in headquarters at odd hours and hiding on the fourth floor during standard hours. He keeps his screen fixed on Annie, never looking away from her. He tracks how close the other tributes are to her. (She jumps at the sound of every cannon.) 

“I don't want to watch her die,” Finnick admits to Mags. “Don't tell me when she goes.” (They'll come get him then, and that's how he'll know. Neither of them have to say that out loud.)

When the dam breaks, she comes and gets him all the same. 

This is an agonizing end to a game. It is slow. Anti-climatic. The Capitol hates it, and it's painful to watch. It's one tribute after another disappearing under the swell. It's their heads not resurfacing. It's the sound of a cannon as water fills another set of lungs. It's watching the look in each of the tributes' eyes as they realize they've lost their strength. They give in to the inevitability of it, their muscles seizing, their bodies betraying them. 

Annie floats, waterlogged, eyes staring at the sky. She is a child of Four, and if the water swallows her, she'll go home. 

The mentors leave the room in pairs as their tributes drown. They leave silently, going to collect corpses of children to return home. 

Finnick doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. They merely stand together, because there is nothing they can do for their girl now. All they can do is wait. This is up to Annie now, a cruel sentence to lay down, because it gives her the illusion of power.

The last boy dunks underneath the water. His hand goes down last, as if he's still trying to find something solid to grasp at. His cannon sounds, and Annie doesn't even react. She doesn't realize what's happened. She just continues floating, her mind a thousand miles away from the games. It isn't always the strongest who wins, Mags knows. Four, despite its status as a Career district is proof of that. She is proof of that. (Her little Finnick is proof of that. Their drenched Annie Cresta is proof of that.) 

Finnick breathes for the first time in days.

“Go get her,” Mags tells him, patting him on the arm. He looks down at her, bewildered, as if he is realizing for the first time that he has brought home a victor. He's never been on this side before. Uncertainty is written on his face. But then he nods and moves toward the door. Mags shadows him, her steps slower. (Finnick doesn't realize that she's followed, and he hurries up the stairs, taking them two at a time.)

Mags can only hope that this girl will be a grounding factor for Finnick, that she'll help him understand why exactly she decided to bring him home five years ago. 

When she gets to the roof, she's not surprised to find Annie hysterically trying to pry herself free of the medical staff. Her hair is still damp, giving her a drowned look. Finnick bends down and says something to her, soft enough that nobody else overhears them. She nods. She wraps her arms around Finnick's neck, and he carries her downstairs to the hospital. 

…

He goes to work while the medical staff tries to coax Annie Cresta into an appropriate mental state. Physically, she's dehydrated and needs to eat. But that's not the problem. She won't talk to anyone but Finnick and Mags. She closes her eyes when Snow's people ask her questions, mouthing words that nobody but she can hear.

Her interview is delayed. She's brought back up to the fourth floor. She has constant nightmares, wakes them all up with her screaming. If it's early in the night, Mags gets up, makes Annie tea, and hums to her until the girl falls back asleep. If it's late and Finnick is back, he stays with her. 

(“She can't do the interview,” Finnick says to Mags.

“She doesn't have a choice,” Mags answers.)

They're both right. When they can't put off the interview any longer, Annie goes on stage. Even Flickerman, who can bring a sheen to the shiest of tributes, is unable to coax Annie out of the shell she hides herself in. They end up replaying most of the games, and interview Finnick about what it's like to have successfully brought home a victor when he's so young. (There is a palpable pause to the end of that sentence: He, one of the most popular victors of all time, has brought home one of the least popular victors of all time. Only the Capitol's love for him gets them through the days they are still in the Capitol.) 

But finally, they are allowed to go home, even Finnick. 

…

Mags is certain that everyone sees what is happening before Finnick. He claims that he's just doing the same for Annie that Mags did for him. He probably believes that. He feels he has a responsibility to Annie. 

He stays with her in her new house, coaxes the nightmares away. Mags has seen them coming home from the beach at sunrise more than once, nighttime hours spent on the beach inside of reliving their Hunger Games. 

Everyone is wary of this new victor. They wait for her to break down into tears. They don't cheer her when she comes home. She is a Career unmade. She was supposed to be strong and ruthless, and instead she won practically by accident. They isolate her. (And that enrages Finnick. He rants about it no end: “We're all like this,” he points out. “Why do they only see it in her?” Because the rest of them aren't permitted to show it. They let it fester inside of them like wounds. They turn to drugs and alcohol, and all matter of destructive habits. They aren't used to people expressing their pain with such open emotion.)

Annie Cresta isn't crazy. Mags knows this. But through the belief that she is, she may just slip the noose of the Capitol more readily than the rest of them. 

The longer they're home, the more Annie shakes off the games. She comes with Finnick when he comes to make Sunday morning breakfasts. (They are good for each other. Finnick smiles when she's around. She talks evenly and easily. The two of them are a disaster in the kitchen. They're utterly childish. The third time they come over, Mags comes down to find Annie with an egg dripping in her hair and Finnick with a bowlful of pancake batter down his shirt. They smile bashfully and Mags decides it's better to let them sort things out.)

Right before Annie's Victory Tour, Finnick shows up by himself. He's up far earlier than usual, no food in sight. Instead he's sitting in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and staring out the window.

“What's wrong?” Mags asks, smoothing the back of his hair down. It's an old habit, but one she hasn't done in years. He doesn't shake her off.

“Annie,” Finnick starts to say. He frowns. She waits for him to find the words. She makes herself a cup of coffee as well before sinking down next to him. 

“Annie told me she had feelings for me,” Finnick says. He looks at her so imploringly, as if this is the worst thing that has happened to him.

Mags hums out her response.

“What did you tell her?” she asks. 

“I told her I would hurt her,” Finnick answers. He seems to key into his surroundings finally. He turns to look at her fully. His expression is beseeching: He wants her to tell him that he's done the right thing.

“I can't love her,” Finnick says, starts to talk too fast. “I'm not-- How could she love someone like me?”

The picture comes into clearer focus. It's moments like these that show the full impact of what Snow has done to him. For all his facades, for all he pretends to be all right, he is wounded on the microcosm level. It's done so neatly, so absolutely, that Finnick can't even see where he is hurt. Snow has altered his life view before Finnick could even learn what a normal life view was. 

Mags reaches for his hand. He lets her take it. 

“I can't tell her, Mags. What I do. What I am,” he says, begging. His voice goes low. “She'll hate me.”

“She knows who you are, baby,” Mags says, using her other hand to pat the top of his hand. 

“She doesn't,” Finnick argues. (This is tearing him apart, and Mags wishes she could just fix everything for him. She wishes she make him see how much good she still sees him.) 

“Finnick, look at me,” Mags says, a touch of sternness in her voice. But he listens all the same. 

“You have to tell her,” Mags continues. “And she will understand.” Mags doesn't doubt this for a moment, because Annie has seen the depravity of the Capitol as well. She is as much a victim of it as Finnick. Her pain and fears have been edited for the entertainment of the masses. She is seen as wanting because she didn't reveal in killing. She understands the cut of the people who make up the Capitol. 

Finnick doesn't answer. He sets his jaw, stares back out the window. 

The two of them go on tour together. Mags is left behind in Four. She watches carefully on the television. Annie starts off strong in District Twelve, but she watches that evaporate. With each district, her dresses are taken in and the dark circles underneath her eyes grow deeper and darker. Her face is pinched. Her words are mumbled, lost into the microphone. 

Finnick actually goes up to stand with her when she's in District Two. His presence seems to secure her a little, and she gets through that speech a little better. (Which is good considering how the Career pack frightened her.) But something happens between Two and One. Finnick stands in the background from One, and there is a distance between them. A divide that seems irreparable. 

Annie comes back alone on the train. Mags goes down to get her. (Annie's parents have proven useless when it comes to her healing after the games. They are impatient for their vibrant daughter to return. Mags doesn't know how to tell them she won't. That Annie needs their love more than ever. It's a hidden burden. So few parents know what to do with what's returned to them from the arena. They spend so many days praying for their child to come home safely. But victors aren't children anymore, and their parents can't understand the new monsters that lurk in their lives. Finnick's parents are perfect examples of that.)

Mags takes the girl's hand and leads her back to her house. She sets her down on the couch, wraps her in a blanket, and wipes the remaining makeup off her face. She makes her a cup of tea and a fat sandwich, tries to coax her to eat.

“I don't understand him,” Annie whispers. She leans in against Mags' shoulder and Mags strokes a hand through her hair.

“He was gone the whole night we were in Two,” Annie continues. “And,” her voice trembles for a moment, but she fights through it because that is what she does, “He slept with someone when we were at the presidential manor. I saw him.”

Oh. Mags' heart pinches painfully. Finnick hasn't told her, and Annie has put the dots together all wrong. She could tell Annie the truth. But it isn't her story to tell. This is Finnick's secret, and he needs to be the one who tells her.

“I love him,” Annie says abruptly. She looks up at Mags, and her eyes well with tears. “I don't understand. He hates the Capitol. I know he does. So why did he...?” She trails off, unable to complete her thought. She buries her face in Mags' shoulder and cries there. Mags makes a gentle noise in the back of her throat and holds her until she falls asleep. 

Finnick comes home a month later. Mags frets on whether she should intervene with him again. But it turns out she doesn't need to. They show up the Sunday after he returns. She slips down into the kitchen and catches them kissing, holding hands.

She goes back to bed for another hour.


	6. Chapter 6

She is with Annie when the stroke happens. 

They take their walks often, she and Annie. Particularly when Finnick is gone. Mags likes her. Annie's smart in a useful sort of way, and wonderfully talented with her hands. The sort of jewelry she makes – it's like watching magic right in front of you. Mags teaches her how to crochet and knit. Sometimes they can sit for hours without talking, just working on one project or another. Annie doesn't like to go down to the market to sell anything though, so Mags handles that sometimes. (Really, they give a lot of the work away, because neither of them need the money.)

In any case, they spend many afternoons combing the beaches for things Annie will use – sea glass and shells, somethings driftwood or particularly striking pebbles. Once, a pearl. (Tucked away, given to Finnick in a rope bracelet. Annie always seems to know which pieces are for Finnick right away, as if she can sense when he is in pain and creates something to fortify him against it.)

So, this day starts out like any other. 

They're halfway up the beach when her arm begins to prickle, an odd sort of numbness that spreads so rapidly she can't ignore it. 

“I need to sit down,” she tells Annie – who is alert in a moment, green eyes clear and worried. (She doesn't miss a thing this one, for all the Capitol mocks her.) 

She takes Mags' arm gently, and sits down beside her. She talks to her softly, but Mags can't concentrate on the words. She has complained of feeling old for years now, able to feel the creakiness in her knees, aches in her wrists. But she hadn't actually felt _old_ until this moment, when she begins to understand that something is actually wrong. She tries to tell Annie, but the words don't come. She tries again, and the wrong ones come out, some sort of miscommunication in the synapses of her brain. 

“I'll be back,” Annie says, kissing her forehead, and then she is gone, fleeing back up the beach. Mags stares out at the water. She waits for the words to come back.

They never really do.

…

She is kept in the hospital for nearly a week. Annie doesn't leave her side, even though she knows the girl hates being here. She has to fight the tremors in her hands every moment, has to blink and concentrate on listening to what the doctors say. She writes everything down, painstakingly, so she will remember it later. So she will tell Finnick the right things.

Mags wants to tell her to go home, to sleep in her own bed. But the words don't come. So instead she holds Annie's hand and listens to her stories. (They're good. And she can hear the moments Finnick has tailored, can hear his quiet laughter. She imagines the times when Annie and Finnick trade these stories back and forth, creating worlds all of their own because this one is too cruel to them.)

She is afraid. She is not so proud that she can't admit that. She might be old, but she doesn't want to die. 

It soothes her, all the same, to know that Finnick will not be alone. It is maybe the one thing that counts for everything. She had been afraid, for so long, to leave her boy alone. But she can see how much Annie loves him, and she can see how _good_ they are for each other. She would trade everything she has left to give them a world where they could be together. It lights a fire in her that she hasn't felt in a long time, even though she's now bound in weak flesh and bone, her brain finally giving way to the creep of age.

Finnick comes home on a night train, runs into the hospital. He is flushed when he arrives in her room, still wearing a suit that is too tight on him.

Annie is up in an instant, gathering him up and pressing him back out the door. She obviously does this to keep Finnick from waking Mags up. She is awake all the same, as if she can feel the tug of her Finnick in the hall. She wants to call to Annie, to tell her to let him in. The words are not there.

She hears them whispering in the hallway, barely audible.

“I should have been here,” Finnick says, wearing his distress openly. (What has he paid to be allowed to come home so soon, Mags wonders. He wasn't due back for another three weeks. She can't bear to imagine what Snow has pried from him; that man is always taking, taking, taking from Finnick, no thought to the fact that the boy cannot be infinite, that he, too, is only mortal. Even Annie is only given as an investment, a safeguard to keep Finnick in this world. She is not given freely.)

“You couldn't have done anything,” Annie says gently, a truth that has to be bruising all the same.

“But–”

“Finnick,” Annie says again. “You couldn't have done anything. She's here. She'll be okay. Go home and get changed. Come back in the morning.” 

Finnick murmurs something Mags can't hear. Annie answers him in the same quiet way.

“I love you,” Finnick says, and then he is gone.

…

When she wakes in the morning, Finnick is there. He's clad in a sweater Annie made him, the product washed from his hair. He starts crying the moment she looks up at him. 

She makes soft tutting noises and presses a hand against his face. 

(She forgets how much of him is a child still. For as brave as he's been, for as much as he pretends to know everything and to be unaffected by everything he's been through, so much of him is no different than the shy four-year-old boy she brought into her home.)

“I'm sorry, Mags,” he begs. “I'm sorry.” He buries his face against her hand and keeps crying, the same loud sobs. She doesn't know what he's apologizing for and, yet, she does. It's everything: Any mean thing he has ever said to her, the argument in the hospital, when he had flung accusations cruelly back at her, the trials he had put her through when he was flitting from one substance to another. Anything he has done that he thinks has lessened her love for him. (And God help her, she knows he could never do anything to make her love him any less. He is her son, her only baby; she's never been able to tell him that she's the one who failed him.)

She pulls him down, kisses his forehead.

“Love you,” she manages to get out, each word flimsy in her mouth. (To think it had been she who had been able to break men with just her words.) She tries his name, but it is like glass, too many different consonants warring with each other. 

“I love you, Mags,” he says, nodding.

She wants to say more, but just points at Finnick's chest and then where she knows Annie must be standing in the hall.

“We'll take care of each other,” Finnick promises immediately. (These words are delivered easily. She knows they would take care of each other anyway, no prompting needed by her.) She smiles at him, pats his cheek again with a gnarled finger.

…

For all their worry about her, she goes home and things are much as they were before. She is slower. With the stroke, Snow finally lets her go completely. She is no longer called to mentor. She stays in Four and gardens. She walks with Annie, and Finnick makes them breakfast on the weekends. She goes to the market and barters in her limited speech. 

The years grind on, and Mags thinks they've found the closest thing to happiness their little family will ever get. (She wants more for Annie and Finnick. Craves it for them in the way she knows they have to, even if neither of them put words to it when she is around. They make do with each other in what they are allowed to have.)

…

The 74th Games come and go. 

The ground begins to shake, minute. 

Mags is not as in tune with the tremors as she once was.

…

She has been through Quarter Quells before. She knows they are not easy. But in that same breath, she also has believed that she has given her blood, surrendered all the flesh that Coriolanus Snow could have wanted from her. She has been in the games; she has given her Finnick to the games. She has mentored dozens of children, buried almost all of them. She has fought nightmares alongside Annie Cresta. 

She feels foolish as ever when Snow says he is claiming them all once again. She feels like a teenager again, come home to Victors' Village to realize that she has given away her childhood for any empty house. She has stained her hands with blood for a glory that doesn't actually exist. She has bought into the lies that the Capitol has told her. 

Annie weeps. Finnick shakes. (He begins to train again, silently. It is an odd parody, memory on reloop, strangely broken. He is stronger than he was at fourteen, swimming effortlessly, mile after mile. Only Annie can beat him there, on the rare days she joins him. And those are rare, because she cries when she watches him. She is not afraid for herself. She is afraid for him. Mags and Annie share this sorrow, hand in hand. They know, together, that Finnick will go back in. His popularity has damned him again. He is too beloved not to. He has too good a chance of defeating Katniss Everdeen not to. He is too well-behaved to not be a victor twice crowned.)

Mags trusts that her Finnick will win again. 

And she trusts that she won't allow Annie and Finnick to go in together. It is all she can do. It might not be much at all, but it is something, she thinks. It is not different than being snatched up by another stroke, she tells herself. But that is a lie. It is different, and her fear is greater. Greater than anything, except for when a fourteen-year-old slid out of his place on the sand and volunteered. And because that is the worst that can happen, she can do this. She can surrender herself, declare her battle done, if it might mean that Finnick can win his. 

Outside of his training, Finnick and Annie are together constantly. They cling with a new desperation. She doesn't tell either of them what she plans to do. She doesn't want to give them the option, to have to live with the guilt of knowing what she has decided. (She knows Annie would want to refuse, and she knows Finnick will try to save whichever of them goes in with him. He will die to let Annie live. But Mags, she will not give Finnick that opportunity.)

…

The day slips up on them, a looming shadow that is oppressive, and yet is surprising when it arrives anyway. For all they've prepared for this, it feels like it couldn't actually be happening. And yet, here it is. Their little group all back on the stage. Mags and Annie on the one side, Finnick and the four other men in a neat row on the other. (They are all the closest thing that Mags has to family. She helped bring them all home. And now they are all at risk again.) 

In an usual display, the men go first. (Because they are excited to see if it is Finnick Odair who will be going again. No one cares if an old woman or the crazy girl go in. They are footnotes. They are nothing victors.) And yet, Mags would bet that Finnick's and Annie's names are the only two in there, looped over again and again to make sure Finnick will fight.

Finnick's name booms against the microphone, feeding into the cameras, broadcast across all of Panem. Finnick smiles, one hand against his forehead for an instant. The only sign that he is upset, that _of course_ it was him. He strolls to the middle, throws up one hand. (And then Annie starts screaming, the sobs shaking through her finally erupting as if they will never end. This to be her nightmare, their strong girl. Not technicolor displays of Philip losing his head, of her struggling to stay afloat. No, losing Finnick is far worse than all of that now.) 

Mags tries to calm her, but Annie is inconsolable. She doesn't even hear her own name being called.

Mags shakes her head, thrusts one arm, points to herself with the other. She sees the flicker of shock on Finnick's face, grief and relief hand in hand. She goes to him, masking her fear with a smile. He draws her in, envelops her completely. (When she has gotten so small?) He presses a kiss to the top of her head. She pats the side of his arm, and then points at the camera. 

(They will watch this motion later, and Finnick reads wrongly into it. He thinks she is reminding him that he needs to be in character, that he can't show how much he loves her or Annie. That is not the truth. She knows she will be used against Finnick anyway.

She is pointing to Snow, knowing he is watching. She is warning him.)

…

Finnick's hands shake on the train and he tries to hide it by not holding anything. He is trying to be gleaming and perfection, flirting with their escort. He watches the videos of the other Reapings. He behaves as if this is all second nature to him, as if he's unafraid. 

She hugs him fiercely. 

“Annie says thank you,” Finnick whispers into her hair. “She loves you.” A pause and then, “I wish you hadn't done that.” His voice breaks. 

…

The Girl on Fire is a good girl. Mags isn't particularly surprised by this. Katniss is young in the same way that Finnick is: not apparent, but painfully so once you see it's there. It's in the curve of her braid over her shoulder, the almost bashful way she looks down when told she is brave for saving her sister. It's in the way she dutifully tries to follow Mags' fingers to recreate a fish hook. 

She has those Seam eyes. The same eyes Mags recognized in Haymitch, that don't trust much, but still see a hell of a lot. 

It's almost flattering when Haymitch comes down and says that Katniss wants her for an ally. He whispers into her ear, a conspiratorial edge Mags has never known in Haymitch. (The boy, the man, has never cared about much, and was always brazen in his efforts. Secrets were never his strong suit.) But here it is now, this plan with Thirteen, a way to get out, maybe to knock Snow a peg or two. Katniss is willing to be an ally with Mags, so they need to loop Finnick in on the action. They need to get Finnick to agree to protect Katniss and then they'll all get out. 

She is too old for this. She is too old for this sort of hope, she tells herself. This will only end in pain. But when it comes to Finnick, she has always been willing to grasp at anything. She convinces him. She asks him to conspire with gamemakers and presidents, asks him to try and save himself. Asks him to pay any price in order to stay alive. (And he will, because he is just as dedicated as getting back to Annie.) 

When she goes up the tube and into the blaring sunlight of the arena, she blinks for an instant, stunned. Her heart misses a beat. The water is a relief, because it's salt. (This is her sentimentality talking. She knows she should hope for fresh water, which they could drink. But the salt water is evocative of home, and she will be that much closer when she dies.)

She twists her gold ring on her finger as she watches the countdown. She can't see Finnick, and she doesn't like that. Another foolish sentiment, really, because seeing him or not, she can't do much to save him anymore. She is too slow. She is a burden to him now, and she knows it. The best she can hope for is a quick death. (And she'd thought she'd earned the right to die quietly in her own bed, surrounded by the mementos of her own life, delivered quickly to Lucy.)

When the games starts, she swims. She might be older than any of these tributes, but some of them have never been in water before, and she's been in water just as often as she's been on land. 

Relief rushes through her when she spots Finnick. He's with Katniss, trident already in hand. (He kills with the same grace he did when he was fourteen, but she likes to think not the same ease. She doesn't know though. Maybe she's painting her own interpretations, what she wants to see, into what he does. And in the end, she doesn't know if it'll matter.) 

She gets onto land, and Finnick rushes to her. A moment of touch, a mere anchor, but his eyes are darting, wild and keen, trying to spot Peeta. She points the boy out to him. Finnick runs to retrieve Katniss.

Mags stands with the girl while Finnick dives into the water, hurried stroke after hurried stroke as he tries to get to Peeta in time. (She remembers him, eager and young, showing off for her and Lucy's approval.) Only the thud of the cannon, heavy in the air, brings her focus back to what's happening in front of her.

But it's okay, because it's Peeta who's surfacing. Their little band is safe for the time being. (Finnick is safe for the time being.) 

When he gets back to the cut of land, he kneels in front of her, and she climbs onto his back without question, arms around his shoulders. He does this all without even thinking about it, automatically, unfaltering. But he will need his strength in the days to come. 

…

The jungle around them buzzes and Mags tries to sleep on the ground, the damp earth almost humid against her. She can hear the quiet murmur of Finnick's voice, talking to Katniss. Their bond is tentative after Finnick saved Peeta's life. But it's enough. Mags thinks it will hold long enough. (She had worried, of course she had. Because Katniss isn't the sort to be wooed by a pretty face – and that's good, she knows. It's her sort of courage they need to save this world, but Mags also needs her to see through into the heart of Finnick while Finnick cannot give up his charade. It's a lot to ask for. But Mags thinks that Katniss' value comes in how she sees people the Capitol does not: She appreciates Mags and Wiress and Beetee when the Capitol has only ever used them, not really valued them. But Finnick is the sort of person the Capitol often uses as a commodity. Implicitly, Katniss does not. But she must if they're going to survive.)

She can get through all matter of strange noises here, but it's that anthem that coaxes her dreams to turn into nightmares. It's that sound that gets under her skin immediately, burning through her like a disease. That sound is death to her. It always has been and it will always be. 

Finnick comes down near her, and once he's there, she sleeps without worry.

…

Katniss starts screaming. She doesn't need to hear her words to know what they mean: _run_.

Finnick's pulse thumps in hard time underneath her hand. He is screaming too. (The pain is searing, unlike anything else she has ever felt. The fog curls against her back, seeps into her skin and her body becomes nothing more than nerve endings, screaming into oblivion.) They collide to a stop, Finnick pinned in place by his own fears. She sees it in his eyes as he looks at Peeta on the ground, Katniss beseeching him. (How can he save them all, he is asking himself, even as all those survival instincts she ingrained in him tell him just to run as fast as he can, and even then, that might not be enough.)

Mags leans in. She presses a hand to his face. She can save him more one time.

She kisses him goodbye.


End file.
